Last week i watched cinderella man

[QueensburyRules]

I agree that films often take liberties, and I won't deny I enjoyed the movie, but I respectfully disagree that the liberties taken with the portrayal of Max Baer in "Cinderella Man" were minor.

When the brute in the film that was supposed to be Max Baer was in boxing trunks, he was a hulking, grunting neanderthal, who is pictured grimacing in delight over two dead bodies. One of the bodies, that of Frankie Campbell, we all know by now, haunted him his entire life and contributed to his erratic record. The other body, Ernie Schaaf, died when he was forced to fight Carnera before he'd recovered from encephalitis due to an extreme bout with pneumonia, not because of the bout 5 months prior with Baer. Read the round by rounds of some of Schaaf's fights after he fought Baer, Ernie did damn good.

When the film brute wore white tie and tails he was a slimy, sneering pig, who's "playboy attitude" per the filmmakers, extended to creating a scene where the brute offers to comfort Braddock's widow after he's killed her husband. A scene created out of someone's gin soaked fantasies and certainly nothing remotely truthful. The film brute is pictured engaged in an orgy with two women. The real Max Baer, as a single young man in his early 20s, certainly embraced what was freely offered to him by independent women, who literally stalked him wherever he went, but he did not use and abuse women. That would be Joe Louis you may be thinking of, who slept with anything with two legs and a crotch, and the more legs and crotches the merrier. Funny how those pesky "breach of promise" suits filed against Max arose only after he was Champ, and many were made by women who claimed he had done the dirty deed in towns he'd never even been in at the time.

To the general classic boxing enthusiast, the real Max Baer was lazy in his training for a handful of well-known fights who's films survive. He trained thoroughly for his bouts against Christner, Campbell, Schaaf I & II, Heeney, Loughran, Risko I & II, Kennedy I & II, Levinsky I & II, Cobb, Griffith, Schmeling, Louis, Farr, Foord, Comiskey, Nova and a few other dozen lesser known bouts in the early 30s.

The real Max Baer was certainly colorful, but no more ****y than any other Heavyweight Champion. Research the early Champs and you'll find that Braddock, Dempsey, Sharkey, Schmeling, Louis, Sullivan, Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Jeffries, all either played on Broadway, or made movies, or sold consumer goods in ads and on radio, or bought expensive cars, or expensive houses or ran around with wild women. Jack Dempsey even got a nose job !

The real Max Baer wasn't one of the "rich, proud few who refused to share." During the Depression, he literally gave the clothes off his back to men without them, he slipped greenbacks into hungry hands outside downtown gymnasiums, he put a good word into the right ear to help the aspiring boxer and the common Joe get a leg up in the world.

Finally, if the film was so truthful about Braddock, why not bring up the fact that Jimmy was just as derogatory in the press about Max prior to the bout, and that during the weigh-in, when Max bound up like a puppy to shake Jimmy and Joe Gould's hands, they both verbally **** all over him.

Regards,
Cat

- -We miss you Cat.

All true, but I'd just add Hollywood unable to portray the least semblance of boxing realism because of cast selections. Crowe was and may still be a congenital drunk and bully unable to fight his way out of a bag of popcorn.

The real background is dramatic enough with no need to smear a tragically cursed era of boxing and champion who died prematurely that greatly upset his family.

Such and other horrible reasons why I stopped paying to see their trash.

[The Old LefHook]

It was pure dog meat of a film. Anything Opie has a creative hand in will be corny. He is not exactly a literary or cinematic genius, lads.

[QueensburyRules]

- -Not Opie fare, but The Alamo remake featured Dennis Quaid as Sam Houston and some lout named Billy Bob Thornton as Davy Crocket.

Surprised Mickey Moose and Goofy didn't make the cut for Jim Bowie and Santa Anna.

Disclaimer- No way in Hades did I ever contemplate seeing the disaster. I was too busy rolling on the floor over their casting woes when they couldn't find any of our local Mexicans to fit into their 1836 uniforms!

[DeeMoney]

Love Cinderella Man, as a contemporary feature film, I think it does a great job of depicting life in the depression.

Most of the characters represented in the film are close to what is accepted as fact; though I believe the Mike Wilson character was ficticious.

I appreciate Crowe's efforts to replicate Braddocks stance and movements in the ring. Also, the character of Sara was portrayed by Rosemarie DeWitt, Bradock's real life granddaughter.

[The Old LefHook]

Nothing at all realistic about Baer.

[DeeMoney]

Nothing at all realistic about Baer.

I meant they were all actual historical figures. Baer was actually the World Heavyweight Champion at the time, as opposed to the character of Mike, who was not a historical figure

[QueensburyRules]

I meant they were all actual historical figures. Baer was actually the World Heavyweight Champion at the time, as opposed to the character of Mike, who was not a historical figure

- -The direction Hollywood has been going, we'll see an epic of Gengis Kahn as preening flamer.

Worked around near 100 early 20s males, most of whom seem to get their history from Hollywood like the Ollie Stone JFK movie.

Hollywood owes it's existence to Fitz and Peter Maher and Texas promoter Dan Stuart who faced down several dozen armed Texas Rangers and Militia with shoot to kill orders in the first attempt to make a full length feature film.

Prob being Fitz KOed Maher after barely a minute of action, so Fitz and Stuart moved to Reno the next 1897 year with Corbett challenging to win his old title back that gave them at least footage of over a half hour that became an immediate International Hit that birthed the film industry and movie theaters where Jeffries became a huge star with some epic distance fights, most all that has been lost thru criminal negligence.

Reality film!

Had this era been in charge of the 5000 yr old Sumerian stone tablets of Gilgamesh, they'd be buried as foundation stones in one of their Great crumbled buildings.

I hope the Baer family got an apology if not a settlement out of those smarmy creeps.

[Dr. Z]

The movie was decent, thanks to its casting. I still don't know why Baer did so little, It looks like he threw the fight as a 10-1 favorite and the wise guys cleaned up.

[DeeMoney]

- -The direction Hollywood has been going, we'll see an epic of Gengis Kahn as preening flamer.

Worked around near 100 early 20s males, most of whom seem to get their history from Hollywood like the Ollie Stone JFK movie.

Hollywood owes it's existence to Fitz and Peter Maher and Texas promoter Dan Stuart who faced down several dozen armed Texas Rangers and Militia with shoot to kill orders in the first attempt to make a full length feature film.

Prob being Fitz KOed Maher after barely a minute of action, so Fitz and Stuart moved to Reno the next 1897 year with Corbett challenging to win his old title back that gave them at least footage of over a half hour that became an immediate International Hit that birthed the film industry and movie theaters where Jeffries became a huge star with some epic distance fights, most all that has been lost thru criminal negligence.

Reality film!

Had this era been in charge of the 5000 yr old Sumerian stone tablets of Gilgamesh, they'd be buried as foundation stones in one of their Great crumbled buildings.

I hope the Baer family got an apology if not a settlement out of those smarmy creeps.

I remember his son raising a fuss about it when it came out, obviously he has connections in Hollywood so maybe that helped him. I read his complaints before I first saw the film, and expecting was a horrible depiction of Baer; but then remember thinking it wasn't that bad how he was portrayed.

Outside of the ring there were only two scenes with him: the first where he is in the hotel room with two women in an obvious sexual situation and is angry that he has to fight Braddock (who he views as being not good enough). And the scene where he meets the Braddock couple in a restaurant and tells Mae Braddock he can 'comfort her when her husband is gone.'

Certainly not angelic portrayals- but not as mean spirited as I was thinking it would be.

[QueensburyRules]

I remember his son raising a fuss about it when it came out, obviously he has connections in Hollywood so maybe that helped him. I read his complaints before I first saw the film, and expecting was a horrible depiction of Baer; but then remember thinking it wasn't that bad how he was portrayed.

Outside of the ring there were only two scenes with him: the first where he is in the hotel room with two women in an obvious sexual situation and is angry that he has to fight Braddock (who he views as being not good enough). And the scene where he meets the Braddock couple in a restaurant and tells Mae Braddock he can 'comfort her when her husband is gone.'

Certainly not angelic portrayals- but not as mean spirited as I was thinking it would be.

- -When Duran told Rays wife that he'd F her after he beat up her husband, at least that was real. Nobody begrudges little alterations of real life, but the real story of Braddock and Baer is compelling enough.

Why does Hollywood focus on extraneous set pieces like Autos and fashions while adulterating the real dramatic story with an obviously inferior story?

Answer: Hollywood is congenitally a$$ backward.